Telephone operator

Telephone Operator

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Telephone operator

A telephone operator is either

With the development of computerized

Stored Program Control exchange

Stored Program Control exchange is the technical name used for telephone exchanges controlled by a computer program stored in the memory of the system....
telephone dialing systems, many telephone call

Telephone call

A telephone call is a connection over a telephone network between the calling party and the called party....
s which previously required a live operator can be placed automatically by the calling party

Calling party

The calling party is a person who initiates a telephone call over the public switched telephone network, usually by dialing a telephone number....
without additional human intervention.

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Encyclopedia

A telephone operator is either

a person who provides assistance to a telephone
Telephone

The telephone is a telecommunications device that is used to transmitter and receive electronically or digitally encoded sound between two or more people conversing....
caller, usually in the placing of operator assisted telephone calls such as calls from a pay phone, collect call
Collect call

A collect call in the USA and Canada or reverse charge call in the UK and other countries is a telephone call in which the calling party wants to place a call at the called party's expense....
s (called reversed-charge calls in the UK
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
), calls which are billed to a credit card
Credit card

A credit card is part of a system of payments named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. It is a card entitling its holder to buy goods and services based on the holders promise to pay for these goods and services....
, station-to-station and person-to-person calls, and certain international call
List of country calling codes

This is a list of country calling codes defined by ITU-T recommendation E.164.The telephone numbering plan for a telephone system includes an international dialing prefix, such as "00" or "011", which must be dialed before the country calling code when dialing an international phone number....
s which cannot be dialed directly.
a telephone company
Telephone company

A telephone company provides telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications. Most of the largest telcos, whatever their origins, are or were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopoly....
offering telephone services to subscribers. For example, users of a mobile phone
Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a long-range, electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites....
will register with a mobile phone operator to receive GSM services
GSM services

GSM services are a standard collection of applications and features available to mobile phone subscribers all over the world. The GSM standards are defined by the 3GPP collaboration and implemented in hardware and software by equipment manufacturers and mobile phone operators....
.

With the development of computerized

Stored Program Control exchange

Telephone call

Calling party

The calling party is a person who initiates a telephone call over the public switched telephone network, usually by dialing a telephone number....
without additional human intervention. Before the advent of automatic exchanges

Telephone exchange

In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls....
, an operator's assistance was required for anything other than calling telephones across a shared party line

Party line (telephony)

In twentieth century telephone systems, a party line is an arrangement in which two or more customers are connected directly to the same local loop....
. Callers spoke to an operator at a switching office who then literally connected their wire to the proper circuit in order to complete the call. Being in complete control of the call, the operator was in a position to listen to private conversations. Direct Dial

Direct distance dialing

Direct Distance Dialing or direct dial is a telecommunications term for a telecommunications network-provided service feature in which a call originator may, without telephone operator assistance, call any other User outside the local calling area....
(DDD) systems were developed in the 1920s to reduce labor costs as usage increased, and to ensure privacy to the customer. As phone systems became more sophisticated, this sort of direct intervention by the telephone operator was needed less and less.

As well as those employed by the public networks, operators are also needed at private branch exchange

Private branch exchange

A private branch exchange is a telephone exchange that serves a particular business or office, as opposed to one that a common carrier or telephone company operates for many businesses or for the general public....
s to answer incoming calls and connect them to the correct extension

Extension (telephone)

An extension telephone is an additional telephone wired to the same telephone line as another. In middle 20th century telephone jargon, the first telephone on a line was a "Main Station" and subsequent ones "Extensions"....
. The term "telephone operator" is used broadly, and can entail a range of responsibilities, from performing wake-up calls from a Hotel Switchboard, to responding to medical emergencies, overhead paging, and disaster response coordination in medical facilities. Well trained operators with a variety of skills usually command the best positions in this field which generally falls under the umbrella of telecommunications.

Telephone operator

See also

External links